Donor Augments Pledge to Arizona Law School by $50-Million; Other Gifts

Several non-profit organizations have received big gifts.

* James E. Rogers, owner of Sunbelt Communications, in Las Vegas, has promised an additional $50-million to the University of Arizona’s College of Law. The gift brings his total commitment to the college to $100-million.

Mr. Rogers increased a springtime pledge of $20-million to $50-million in September (The Chronicle, September 24). That part of the gift will be paid out over a 20-year period.

The additional $50-million will come to the law school upon Mr. Rogers’s death. All of the funds will be used to provide scholarships, improve programs, hire more faculty members, and support expansion.

The television magnate has said he hopes to leave 80 per cent of his estate to higher education. This year he has pledged more than $150-million to higher-education institutions in Western states.

* The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin has received an expansive collection estimated to be worth at least $30-million.

Alessandra Manning Dolnier of Watertown, Conn., an interior designer, and her husband, Kurt, a photographer, have promised some 700 paintings, drawings, and sculptures by such Old Masters as Daniele Crespi and Claude Lorrain. The trove is regarded as one of the finest collections of late Renaissance and Baroque artworks in the world.

Mrs. Dolnier’s grandfather, William Suida, started the collection in the early 1900s and bequeathed it to his daughter, Bertina, and her husband, Robert Manning — a Texas native.

The Dolniers will receive an annuity from the museum over the next 20 years as part of the terms of their donation. The museum is seeking $15-million for that annuity, and for a trust to help maintain the acquisition.

* A $27-million gift from Isao Okawa, chairman of CSK Corporation and the video-game company Sega Enterprises, will establish a center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, where children can use digital technology to learn and play.

The facility is expected to open in 2003 and will expand M.I.T.’s Media Laboratory. Researchers worldwide will help build a digital playground that incorporates music, dance, storytelling, and visual arts with the latest computer technology, an M.I.T. spokeswoman said.

* Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, and his wife, Melinda, have given $20-million to the Seattle Public Library Foundation for its “Libraries for All” campaign.

The Gates’s gift will expand neighborhood libraries, supplement book collections throughout the system’s 27 branches, and support literacy and English-as-a- second-language programs.

City voters approved a $196.4-million bond measure for the campaign on November 3. With the Gates’s gift in hand, the foundation is seeking to raise an additional $40-million from other sources. Among the campaign’s goals are to rebuild the system’s central library, construct three branches, and lengthen operating hours.

* Three Texas lawyers who helped to win a $17.6-billion settlement in January against the tobacco industry have pledged $20-million to their alma mater, Baylor University, in Waco, Tex.

Walter Umphrey and his wife, Sheila, gave $10-million. Harold Nix and his wife, Carol Ann, gave $5-million, as did John Eddie Williams and his wife, Sheridan. The donations are earmarked for the university’s $35-million campaign for a new law-school building.

* Harding University, in Searcy, Ark., has received $12-million from Bob and Sandy Brackett of Vero Beach, Fla., to endow the library. The Bracketts own Credit Data Services, a credit-reporting company.

* The economist Henry Kaufman has donated $10-million to New York University, for its effort to expand the Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Mr. Kaufman is president of Henry Kaufman & Company, an investment-management and financial-consulting firm in New York.

* The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities has received $10-million from Richard (Pinky) McNamara, chief executive officer of Activar, a holding company for businesses that make plastics and construction materials. The gift will support the College of Liberal Arts, athletics programs, and a new alumni and visitors’ center.

Other recent gifts:

Boston U.: $1,000,000 from John Silber of Boston, chancellor of the university, and his wife, Kathryn, for undergraduate scholarships at the College of Arts and Sciences for students who are native Texans and who graduate from public schools in Texas.

Case Western Reserve U. (Ohio): $4,400,000 bequest from the estate of Sarah Cole Hirsh of Cleveland, a nurse, to endow the School of Nursing, and $1,250,000 from Shirley Wormser Shapero of Cleveland, a writer, to endow a professorship in journalism.

Duke U. (N.C.): $7,500,000 from the real-estate developer Raymond D. Nasher of Dallas, chairman of the Nasher Company and chairman of Comerica Bank-Texas, to construct a new art museum on campus.

Hopkins School (Conn.): Up to $5,000,000 from John C. Malone of Englewood, Colo., chairman of Tele-Communications Inc., for endowment. Mr. Malone has promised to match gifts to the school during the remaining two years of its capital campaign.

Marine Biological Laboratory (Mass.): $1,000,000 from an anonymous donor to establish a program in scientific aquaculture at the laboratory’s Marine Resources Center. Other donors must give twice as much in order for the laboratory to receive the gift.

Merrimack College (Mass.): $1,000,000 from Linda Ciejek of Westfield, Mass., and her husband, Daniel, to endow a professorship in financial management.

Miami Project to Cure Paralysis: $1,000,000 from Ralph C. Wilson, Jr., of Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., a businessman and owner of the Buffalo Bills football team, for the capital campaign.

Ohio University: $6,250,000 from Will Konneker of St. Louis, co-founder of Nuclear Research & Development, and his wife, Ann Lee, to endow undergraduate scholarships.

Pratt Institute (N.Y.): $1,000,000 bequest from the estate of Dorothy Barrett of San Mateo, Cal., who operated a horse-breeding farm and was the granddaughter of Charles Pratt, the institution’s founder, for scholarships, and $1,000,000 from an anonymous donor to construct a facility for the School of Architecture.

Roanoke College (Va.): $5,000,000 from Tristram Colket of Paoli, Pa., owner of Tekloc Enterprises, a private-investment company, and his family, to expand the Sutton Student Center, which houses the dining commons. The Colkets’ gift must be matched by other pledges of $10,000 or more by December 2001.

Scripps College (Cal.): $1,800,000 from Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler of London, to endow contemporary European studies.

U. of Colorado at Boulder: $3,000,000 from Robert H. Deming of Golden, Colo., chairman of Toastmaster, a home-appliance manufacturer, and his wife, Beverly, to expand the entrepreneurial program at the College of Business Administration.

U. of Northern Iowa: $3,600,000 bequest from Everett Alderman of Pittsburgh, a retired distinguished professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, for scholarships.

U. of Oklahoma at Norman: $5,000,000 from the Broadway producer A. Max Weitzenhoffer of Norman, president of Weitzenhoffer Productions, and his family, for the College of Fine Arts and the musical-theater program.